He has merely added one more link to his chain of phenomena,
and the "first cause" remains as far off as ever. For if God is not
related to phenomena he ceases to be a cause of phenomena in the only
sense in which he is of use to the theistic hypothesis.

Further, one may ask, Why travel back along the chain of causation to
discover God? What is gained by travelling along an infinite series,
and saying suddenly, "At this point I espy God." Confessedly we may
trace back phenomena as far as we will without finding ourselves a step
nearer a commencement. All we get is a transformation of pre-existing
material into new forms. Consequently all the evidence that exists at
the moment we cease our journey existed when we began it. In short, if
God can be shown to be the efficient cause of phenomena anywhere, he can
be shown to be the cause everywhere, and the proof may be produced
through phenomena immediately at hand as well as from those removed from
us by an indefinite number of stages. The evidence becomes neither
stronger nor more relevant by being put farther back. Proof is not like
wine, its quality does not improve with age. To say that we must pause
somewhere may be true, but that is only reminding us that both human
time and human energy are limited. But it is certainly foolish to first
of all induce mental exhaustion, and then use it as the equivalent of a
positive and valuable discovery.

And even though by some undiscovered method we had reached that
metaphysical nightmare a cause of all phenomena, and in defiance of all
intelligibility had christened it a "First Cause," how would that
satisfy the "causal craving"? Professor Campbell Fraser very properly
says that "the old form of each new phenomenon as much needs explanation
as the new form itself did, and this need is certainly neither satisfied
nor destroyed by referring one form of existence to another." If A. is
explained by B. we are driven to explain B. by C., and so on
indefinitely. Or if we can stop with A. or B. then the causal craving
is not so persistent as was supposed, and man can rest content within
the limit of recognised limitations. For what Professor Fraser calls an
"absolutely originating cause" is only such so long as we have not
reached it. We are satisfied with an imaginary B. as an explanation of
the actual A. so long as B. does not come within our grasp. So soon as
it has become the originating cause of the phenomenon in hand we are off
on